background media scan

[miyagi666]

The BMS feature scans the drive for possible errors while the drive is idle. The result is a soft click every X number of seconds...continuously, until the entire drive is scanned. Then it waits X number of days until the next scan.

This feature seems to be on the newer HGST NAS drives, but it's not noted in the specs. The evidence is the number of people complaining about a "clicking" sound every 5 seconds when the drive is idle.

The HGST NAS 6TB has it. Does the NAS 4TB have it?

Who has this on their drive, and is it really as annoying as people are saying? Can it be disabled?

 

[VirtualLarry]

"Sweep at idle" and "active wear-levelling" have been features for YEARS in Seagate drives. Wouldn't be surprised if WD did those things too.

Probably just noisy seeks (lacking WD's "SoftSeek"), due to Hitachi's server drive design heritage.

 

[miyagi666]

Don't know anything about S.M.A.R.T. or what drives it works on, but I wonder if this would work on an HGST:

Disable Background Media Scanning

The -bmsd command disables background media scanning.

Usage

smartmon-ux -bmsd DeviceList